(Oakland) The Riverside girls will be in action Thursday night against Heartland Christian.
The Lady Dawgs have struggled out to an 0-4 start and have been outscored by on average 59-23. Co-head coach Mitch Rice views this contest as another opportunity for his team to continue to develop. “We just have to continue to grow. We have to run our offense a little bit better and more thorough and not just come down and look one way. We have to continue to work as a team. Coach Liz Graves and myself have really stressed the family atmosphere that comes along with basketball this season.”
Experience is limited for Riverside. “Kenna Ford does a great job. She’s a senior that didn’t get to play last year due to injury. She’s been doing a really nice job leading us in most stat categories. We have a bunch of young kids that are contributing. Three of our five starters hadn’t played high school basketball before we started the season.”
Heartland Christian is a team they feel they can match up well with. The Eagle’s only win is against Iowa School for the Deaf, 38-21. They are averaging 23 points per game and allowing 50. “What we have to focus on is getting better ourselves. We have to take care of the basketball and stop turning it over. We are really going to focus on ourselves on this upcoming game. This is a game we feel we can be competitive in and do some good things, but we’ve got to take care of our business before we worry about what our opponent is doing.”
Rice admits with players in and out of practice due to quarantine it’s been hard to evaluate exactly what they have. Pregame coverage comes your way at around 5:50 p.m.
